Not less plainspoken are COTTON’S words about a question that was destined, in a short time, to excite the whole kingdom. Tonnage and poundage, he says, were granted simply for defence of the State, ‘so they may be employed in the wars; and particular Treasurers account in Parliament’ for that employment. [Sidenote: _Proceedings in the Commission for the Navy Royal, &c._; as above.] ‘They are so granted,’ he adds, ‘in express words; and that they proceed of goodwill, not of duty. Precedents of this nature are plentiful in all the Rolls.’ A final example of this sort may be found in the pithy warning grounded upon RICHARD THE SECOND’S grant to a minion of the power of compounding with delinquents. It was fatal, he says, both to the king and to his instrument. ‘It grew the death of the one and the deposition of the other.’ COTTON’S Report on the Crown Revenues has also an incidental interest. Out of it grew the creation of the new dignity of baronets. Were His Majesty, says the writer, ‘now to make a degree of honour hereditary as Baronets, next under Barons, and grant them in tail, taking of every one £1000, in fine it would raise with ease £100,000; [Sidenote: COTTON’S PROPOSITION FOR THE CREATION OF BARONETS, 1609.] and, _by a judicious election_, be a means to content those worthy persons in the Commonwealth that by the confused admission of [so] many Knights of the Bath held themselves all this time disgraced.’ When this passage was written that which had been, under ELIZABETH, so real and eminent an honour as to be eagerly coveted by patriotic men, had been lavished by JAMES with a profusion which entailed their contempt and disgust. I have before me the fine old MS. from a passage in which COTTON borrowed the title of the new dignity. [Sidenote: 9 R. II. Durh. 17 July, 1385. COTTON MS., Nero D., vi, § 16. (B. M.)] The word occurs thus:—‘_Ceux sont les estatutz, ordenances ... de n̄re très excellent souv seigneur le Roy Richard, et Johan, Duc de Lancastre, ... et des autres Contes, Barons, et_ Baronnetz, _et sages Chivalers_.’ Sir Robert was himself amongst the earliest receivers (June, 1611) of the new order. Its creation led to many jealousies and discords. It gave both to the King and to his councillors not a little trouble in settling the precise privileges and precedencies of its holders. In those controversies the author of the suggestion took no very active part. King JAMES was much more anxious for the speedy receipt of the hundred thousand pounds, than about the ‘judicious election’ of those by whom the money was to be provided. COTTON’S satisfaction with the ultimate working out of his plan must have had its large alloy.[5]